Swimming through Smoke

Every year, a group of friends and I go away for Labor Day. And every year I try to get my friend D somewhere cool to swim with me.

This year we were in Stevenson, WA in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge.

We had a 6+ bedroom house high on a hill overlooking the river. It was a perfect place for a weekend getaway with a group of families.

About 5pm on Saturday afternoon, my spouse woke me up from a nap and suggested I look out the window.

There was a giant column of smoke from the hillside across the way.  By the time the sun had set, we could see the fire from our porch.

We were able to see individual trees go up in flames. The media was reporting that there were approximately 150 hikers trapped on a trail above the fire. We worried about them as we marveled at the power of the fire.

Sunday we woke up to smokey air quality and heat.  No one really wanted to go outside. It was hard to breath and ash was falling from the sky.  We spent most of the day inside, playing board games and reading.

Monday, as we were packing up, I was feeling sad about not having had a swim adventure. So I convinced D to go down and dip in the Columbia River with me. It looked like it was snowing on the way down to the river; there was that much ash falling from the sky.

That's D with the SUN above his head.  That's how smokey it was.

The water felt refreshing, as it was still early enough in the day for the air to not feel awful. We swam upstream for about 25 minutes. We got to a point where we basically were on a treadmill, swimming with almost no progress.  So we turned around and headed back.  I'm glad I got my swim in, even if it wasn't the greatest ever.  I'll have memories of the ash that day.

On the way out of town, I stopped and took this photo.  It accurately portrays the air quality that day.

The good news is that all of the hikers were safely evacuated.  The bad news is that a lot of a beautiful wildlife refuge has been destroyed.

CSO: Or why I didn't swim this weekend

I live in Seattle and swim in Puget Sound (or Lake Washington). Recently I've been swimming most often out of Alki beach in West Seattle.

Seattle has a dirty little secret. That is, with each large rain storm, the city releases thousands of gallons of sewage into the waterways, both Puget Sound and Lake Washington.  This is done to keep the sewage from backing up into the streets when the storm drains are full.  That's, on balance, probably a good idea.

However, I don't especially like swimming in raw sewage.  And so, when the rains are heavy, I check the city website for information on if the Combined Sewage Outflows (CSOs) have fired off.  If they have, I don't swim.

Here's the chart from this weekend, with my swim point marked with an arrow:

One might argue that the CSOs near my swim site weren't dispensing, so why not swim?  Well, I once got VERY sick after a swim with that logic.  So these days, a red or yellow CSO means no swim for me.

I hope to be back this weekend.  And, as the days are getting (slightly) longer, perhaps an after-work swim will be back on the agenda soon!

Moses Lake

The family spent a week in Yellowstone and the surrounding areas. I didn't get to swim, but I did spend one day on a horse.

The horse really did spend most of its time eating!

And one in a raft. 

I'm in a raft, here, not that you can tell.

 
And I got to see things that looked like this:

On the way home it was over 100* in Missoula, and in Spokane it was 97.  So I stopped to swim in Moses Lake.  We asked a local at the DQ where people swam in the area.  She pointed me to two local parks.  I couldn't find one, so went to the other. It was Cascade Park. There were a lot of teenagers jumping and diving off a pier, so I figured I would join them. 

Turns out the dock said "no swimming from this dock" on it.  I ignored, it as the kids were.

The water was warm, and a bit mucky.  It stank and had an algae bloom or something else suspended in it.  Small bits of mud or dirt or algae.  But it felt refreshing.  I swam about 1/4 mile out, parallel with the shore, and back.  Easy. Refreshing.  Then got back in the car for the ride home.  A stop in Ellensburg at the brewery made the day complete.

Alice Lake.

We went camping at Alice Lake this weekend. Alice Lake is a great little provincial park about half way between Vancouver and Whistler. It is just a few km north of Squamish. The park hosts four lakes, and on Sunday afternoon we did the "four lake hike," a hike of about 5.5km that takes you past all four lakes. On the way we encountered an aggressive dog and two frogs (I am deathly afraid of frogs). The hike was pretty, and I evaluated the swim-ability of each of the lakes and decided that Alice was the best choice for my swim the next morning.

Monday was a bit colder and more overcast than Sunday, and I set off to swim around 11am. I started on the swim beach near the campground, swam to the far beach and back, then did another lap. Total distance around .75 miles.

The water was warm enough that I didn't need the wetsuit- but I wore it anyway. Since it was an overcast Monday there weren't other people in the water. A few kids were playing on the beach, but otherwise I had the place to myself. My spotter sat and read as I swam. It was quiet.

The only drawback of this swim, was the 9 hours my wetsuit sat wet in the car on the way back to Seattle. ICK! There needs to be another plan next time.

Air temp: 68 Lake temp: 66 Time in water: 35 min.

Swim from Cuba

NYT has coverage today of Diana Nyad, a woman in her 60's who is planning on swimming from Cuba to Florida. 103 miles. That's my swim across Lake Washington, repeated approximately 73 times!

There are a few things I find remarkable about this story.

One is the focus on her as a woman in her 60's. The claim that older athletes may be better distance athletes. The idea that the wisdom and experience of age, combined with years of base building, can make the slightly older athlete a better endurance athlete. I've always thought of myself as someone with more endurance than speed. It may be that my parents gifted me with more slow-twitch muscle fiber than fast-twitch. My lineage of Russian and Turkish Jews does not breed sprinters. As I approach 40, I would love to age into a practiced endurance athlete.

Another focus of the story is on her saftey in what are assumed to be shark infested waters. Having just finished Fearless Swimming for Triathletes (review coming in the next week or so), I know that the incidence of shark attack on humans is very low. There are things they will do for Diana to make it lower, but in general, this is not her biggest risk. It plays well in the media, however, and that is probably part of the reason for its coverage.

Finally, the article mentions that she will eat "predigested protein." This just sounds icky to me. So I turn to the source for all things- google! Turns out that body builders use this, and the "predigesting" is done by adding the right enzymes to the protein, not a human or some other animal having to re-regurgitate it. Phew! It isn't as icky as it sounds.

I wish her luck with the swim, it will be interesting to see if she can make it.